


and i can't help but drive away (from all the mess i made)

by who_is_she



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: #IntrospectiveKeith2017, Introspection, Mention of attempted suicide, Other, and then this got super out of hand, brief - Freeform, but it's like really small, im sorry, like rly brief, our l.a. teacher told us to write like ten lines of whatever we wanted, this is really self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 05:04:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10824345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/who_is_she/pseuds/who_is_she
Summary: You don’t think you’re a rebellious teenager. You’ve nothing to rebel against but the whole world.You’ve nothing but an old house that belonged to your father and a beaten-down truck that sputtered until you ducked inside its hood; it purrs like a cat now.You’ve nothing but your dirty calloused hands, your big brain and your even bigger mouth that never knows what to talk about and when it does, never knows how to stop.You’ve nothing but a strange knife that wasn’t made on this small, insignificant planet and your own damn name.A bit of introspective Keith from right before Shiro's ship crash-landed because I really wanted to explore how his thought-to-action response works (Hint: he doesn't have one). Written in second person.





	and i can't help but drive away (from all the mess i made)

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Oh Wonder's _Drive_ , which I strongly suggest you listen before/while reading this fic. I changed the lyrics a bit to match the title and theme.
> 
> If you read the tags, you'll see there is a big, fat "Mention of Attempted Suicide" tag there. Don't worry about it too much. It's not graphic or even explicit at all, just a brief reference. I don't think it could be tagged as triggering but I like playing safe. I also wrote it so it won't spring up on you either.

Sometimes you get in your truck late at night and drive for hours and hours and hours in the cold desert until your mind is too tired to think of anything but “ _sleep, sleep, sleep”_ and the only thing you can feel is the silent pounding of your heartbeat.

 

You don’t think you’re a rebellious teenager. You’ve nothing to rebel against but the whole world.

You’ve nothing but an old house that belonged to your father and a beaten-down truck that sputtered until you ducked inside its hood; it purrs like a cat now.

You’ve nothing but your dirty calloused hands, your big brain and your even bigger mouth that never knows what to talk about and when it does, never knows how to stop.

You’ve nothing but a strange knife that wasn’t made on this small, insignificant planet and your own damn name.

 

“ _My name is Keith Kogane,”_ you tell yourself before you go to sleep every night, and most of the time it feels like a lie.

You still hear your father’s voice whispering, “ _Keith, Keith, Keith!”_ in the dark of the desert, sitting on a twisted red spire of rock, being as far away from your house (because it’s not _home_ now, and _it never will be again_ ) as you can bear.

You still hear the “ _pling, pling, pliiiing”_ of the from the foreign radiation spikes your sensors detect as they pick up on the clues you’re fighting to hold on to.

Sometimes, when you look in the mirror wondering if—no, _when—_ the purple spots on your skin will appear, and your heart’s twisting with the desperation of always looking and never finding, you drive.

 

 

You take the red hoverbike from the garage, because tonight, the car’s not fast enough, not wild enough, not _dangerous_ enough to let you forgive and forget—or, because you’re a relatively realistic person (“ _—alien, alien, **alien** ”), _to at least _forget._ You don’t think you can ever forgive again, not after _Shiro._

Even the bike is a reminder of him; of his betrayal. The swerve motor and the accelerator are his design, his and that short-ish, skinny bones kid with the poofy chestnut hair. _What was his name again_ — Mark? Miles? Matt? It doesn’t matter now.

They’re both dead anyways.

That’s what they said at the Garrison. They’d sent you a short, lazily-written letter after the evening announcements, and the next morning you’d made sure to crash their nicest practice shuttle before you resigned.

Sometimes you still lament the fact that Garrison Trainee Corps’ shuttles were designed to protect the pilot inside rather than the ship itself. It would’ve been easier to end it back then, when you weren’t in this cold, unforgiving desert looking for an alien ship— if it _is_ an alien ship, feeling that if you didn’t you would probably hate yourself more than you already do.

 

 

Shiro was not the first—but he certainly was the last— thing you tried to hold on to.

_And he (tried) to hold on right back._

               

 

And so you drive, swerving obstacles out of habit although you want to crash into them and die, speeding enough for your hair to fly behind you, telling yourself that the wetness in your eyes isn’t tears—

               

 

 

 

_And then you see the purple lights falling from the sky._


End file.
